Vincent Holway
)]] Name: Vincent Holway Gender: Male Age: 18 School: Whittree Secondary School Hobbies and Interests: Baseball, 'classic' culture, helping out family, rugby, drawing and diary Appearance: Vincent stands at 6'1" and weights 161 lbs. He has a lithe physique, though one can still see that he an active young man. His skin is Caucasian in nature, albeit slightly browner than average. His brown eyes share the color with his 1 ½ inch long hair, which is always appearing as if Vincent just left the bed. Vincent's face has a distinct V-Shape, with thin lips, a sharp nose and narrow eyes and eyebrows accentuating said shape. Upon close inspection, one may see that Vincent has very voluminous eye lashes. Vincent usually wears a scowl on his face, which only relaxes when he is in the privacy of his own room. During his participation in SotF, he wore blue denim pants, brown pleather shoes, a skin-tight brown shirt made out of polyester, black cotton gloves, white socks and black retroshorts. Biography: Vincent was born to Layla and Jeff Holway in Whittree. His parents founded an antiques shop a few years before his birth, which, partly due to the internet, was a moderate success and offered enough money for Layla and Jeff to found a family. Layla and Jeff were great fans of pre-SotF culture, to the point of being elitists. This influenced Victor heavily, who came to despise modern culture and believing that anything older than SotF is superior. Another significant influence in his life would be Naomi Claudia Skye, the daughter of a friend of Vincent's parents. Due to that friendship, Naomi and Vincent were often forced to spend time together. However, both children came to like and care for each other and a long-lasting friendship developed. They are not exactly sure why they bonded, but it is likely that their mutual interest in baseball helped developing said friendship. When Vincent was 12 years old, Layla had another child. This child, a boy called Max, was actually an accident. Layla and Jeff falsely believed that getting another child would be impossible due to their ages. Nonetheless, Max was loved just as much as Vincent was. His existence caused some financial stress initially, but strict managing of the household budget and a generous extended family eventually proved to be enough to keep the Holway's on the edge between lower and middle class. In his teenage years, Vincent discovered that he was attracted to his own gender. When he fully realized that, he was distraught, but not because he himself had trouble accepting it, but because he was afraid of how his environment would react. Thus he decided to keep his homosexuality secret. In Secondary, Naomi misinterpreted a few of Vincent's actions and words, which led to her telling everybody that she and Vincent would be a pair. Vincent was upset about this, but Naomi was very happy to have a boyfriend and Vincent was unable to hurt her feelings in any way. Additionally, he realized that this was a good chance to completely hide his own sexual preferences. His academic performance is fairly average. Exceptions are his marks in PE, English and Music, which are a bit superior to the rest. He is a member of the baseball team. He is neither particularly good or bad, however, his introverted and sometimes even anti-social nature make him one of the less popular members. The reason Vincent plays baseball is rather simple. Everyone else did it and Vincent likes being physically active. Thus he chose the sport that was supported. However, he has a greater interest in rugby. The reason he likes that sport is because he once saw a documentary about it, and it simply looked like it would be entertaining. Said estimation proves true every time Vincent has the chance to play, although he is not that good. Vincent has, like his parents, a conservative approach in regards to culture. He sees the modern culture, and more importantly, the modern populace as violence-glorifying savages. This eventually evolved into a generally misanthropic world-view. He likes to rant about how humans are the worst animals and that it would be better if an apocalyptic event would happen. These rants are rather secretive, however, mostly found in his diary. Vincent also picked up drawing in his teenage years. It is not much of a big hobby, since he mainly uses his to illustrate his handwritten diary. These drawings are simplistic, and serve as a unintended juxtaposition to the quite verbose language he uses in his diaries. Vincent is very close to his family. This can be seen by the fact that he gladly helps his parents with any tasks they give him, such as simple errands or helping out in the antiques shop, and most importantly, tending to his little brother whenever Layla and Jeff are not able too. Despite this, he is very afraid of any negative consequences that could happen if he outed himself. The most important figure in his life would be Naomi Claudia Skye, though. They know each other for a long time, and thus know a lot about each other behaviors and ambitions. Currently, their relationship could be described as fake, however. Vincent has no romantic or sexual desired concerning the very clingy Naomi, but due to him being afraid of hurting her, he let her stay in the dark. In practice, any affection does not go beyond kissing, as no party has any desire to develop it further. Vincent is rather happy that she has no sexual demands. Naomi is despite of this still the only one of his peers who Vincent would admit to like. Among everyone else, Vincent acts rather introverted at best, and caustic at worst. Given that he is often insulting to his class mates when he talks, he turns out to be a rather unpopular student. However, there are people Vincent likes. These people are, for example, old-culture enthusiasts like him, or generally kind people. Vincent expresses his approval of these people as not being caustic towards them. Vincent is not sure about what he should do in future. A part of him likes the idea to go to politics, as he sees himself as one of the last reasonable people. It is more of an afterthought, however. When asked about this, he will forcibly change the topic, or abort the conversation. Advantages: Vincent is fit from his sportive background. Furthermore, his distrusting nature may protect him from people who want to use him. Disadvantages: Vincent is a rather unpopular person along his class mates, which may result in people reacting antagonistic towards him. Additionally, his anti-social behavior may damage his ability to find allies. Designated Number: Rainbow Parrots 1 (RBP1) ---- Designated Weapon: Phillipine Bolo Knife Mentor Comment: "Man this guy sounds about as fun as a joint in a crypt. Lighten up! Stab some folks!" Evaluations Style.]] Handled By: 'Bikriki, TheRedVelvet '''Kills: ' None 'Killed By: 'Vahka Basayev 'Collected Weapons: '''Phillipine Bolo Knife (designated weapon) '''Allies: 'Vahka Basayev 'Enemies: 'Taylor DeVasher, Gene Steward, Lukas Graves, Zoe Walker. Vahka Basayev 'Mid-game Evaluation: ' 'Post-Game Evaluation: ' 'Memorable Quotes: '"And what he saw then was, unfortunately, not a second penis. " "If you ask me, I have no problem with these glory hogs dying. Is better for society if we got a bunch less of these nutjobs running around." Other/Trivia Threads Below is a list of threads that contain Vincent, in chronological order '''The Past *It was a stormy night... Sandbox: *Antiquarian Esquivalence *The Littlest Things *A Pleasure To Burn *I'll Tumble For Ya SOTF-TV: *First Impressions *Once Upon A Time *It's Dangerous to Go Alone, Take This *CAVE CAVE DEUS VIDET *Cleansing Your Thoughts Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Vincent. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here! *Writing a misanthropic Social Darwinist was fun. That'll do, pig. That'll do.- TheRedVelvet *Vincent is, I think, a really great example of several quirks of Bikriki's writing, usually in a good way though in one very specific situation much less so. Vincent is, to understate, a little bit strange. He has a somewhat stilted, overly-formal air to him, but that's expressly part of his personality, and so it works very well. This is aided by Bik's talent for giving his characters strong, unconventional voices. Vincent not only sounds nothing like any other character in TV2, he also stands apart from virtually every character across SOTF; the only ones who come close are some of Bik's V5 characters, and he's savvy enough to avoid retread. Vincent is established quite well through an active Sandbox, showing both his demeanor (and thus why many aren't too fond of him) and a greater and more subtle complexity. The one thing I'm not totally sold on, though, is his relationship with Naomi Skye, who is so far removed in manner from Vincent that it's hard to see what exactly draws them together; this isn't helped by his profile stating even he's not sure. That sort of thing can work well, but I think needs a bit more chemistry than Vincent and Naomi possessed to sell it. Vincent makes the leap to the game proper very well. He's recognizably the same exact guy we've gotten to know, but at the same time he's clearly affected by the extreme situation, leading him eventually into an odd alliance with Vahka Basayev. The pair play off each other well, with Vincent's icy demeanor contrasting Vahka's more heated personality. Their encounters with Taylor DeVasher and Gene Steward are largely well-drawn, and Vincent is a highlight throughout. But this all leads up to my main gripe: Vincent is adopted near the end of the Gene scene, and while it's clear TheRedVelvet likes Vincent quite a bit and has done his research on the character, Bik is one of the hardest acts in SOTF to follow in large part because of all those unique stylings and voices delivered with the perpetual consistency I described above. Attempts to replicate Bik's style just don't tend to do it for me, largely because his characters often are steered towards their most extreme traits, where what lets him get away with those traits in the first place is the understated humanity that underlies all of them and is much harder to imititate and preserve. In this particular case, Vincent tunnels hard on his judgmental aspects, and that disrupts the balance in his dynamic with Vahka. Vincent slips into the background for his first real post-adoption scene, and the next one is his death at Vahka's hands, which just doesn't feel quite right to me. My big quibble here is that Vincent's and Vahka's partnership has actually been largely quite functional. There's no real inciting event, no straw to break the camel's back, and their conflict, while tinged with an element of mutual respect I like a lot, can't decide whether it's based on trust or distrust; if Vincent and Vahka can put faith in each other to leave their respective loved ones alone until the end of the game, why can't they have similar faith in their partnership, which has far more options for enforcement? The fight is fairly well-handled, but I wish that the inevitability it presents itself with had actually manifested in threads before, because as-is it feels like an abrupt ending to a very strong dynamic, and that further compounds the issues of Vincent's post-adoption shift. - MurderWeasel Category:SOTF-TV Category:Characters